Michael Brown Jr. was on the verge of starting college, eager to launch himself into the adult world. Instead, on Monday he’ll be mourned at his funeral, more than two weeks after he was shot dead by a white police officer — an act that ignited days of violent protests and reawakened racial tensions that still linger in the nation.

Six years ago when Barack Obama became America’s first black president — one who incidentally had a Caucasian mother — hopes ran high that he would transform race relations in a country still divided, in many ways, along colour lines.

In his famous “more-perfect union” speech during the 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama had called for an end to the “racial stalemate” that saw blacks angrily decry bigotry as if nothing had changed since the Jim Crow era, and whites refuse to acknowledge that any discrimination still existed.

On the restive streets of this St. Louis suburb and in the discourse throughout America that followed the shooting of a black teenager by a white policeman here, the stalemate seems as entrenched as ever.

Brown, who was unarmed, became an instant symbol of racial injustice as protesters flooded into the streets after his death. Civil rights leaders said the shooting in this predominantly black St. Louis suburb revived long simmering questions about police treatment of minorities across the U.S.

During more than a week of demonstrations — marred by Molotov cocktails and billowing clouds of tear gas — Brown’s name and face were frequently visible on T-shirts and picket signs. Some also chanted: “I AM MIKE BROWN!”

Even as the details of what happened during the Aug. 9 confrontation remain unclear, a portrait has emerged of the 18-year-old Brown.

Family and friends recall a young man built like a lineman — 1.9 metres, nearly 140 kilograms — with a gentle, joking manner. An aspiring rapper who dubbed himself ‘Big Mike.’ A fan of rap music and computer games. A kid who was good at fixing things. A struggling student who buckled down to finish his courses and graduate on time.

“He was kind-hearted, a little kid in a big body. He was intimidating looking, but I don’t think he ever was disrespectful to me,” said Charlie Kennedy, a Normandy High School health and physical education teacher.

He says Brown was the kind of kid who’d hold court with “four or five kids around him, cutting up and having a good time.”

Kennedy became acquainted with Brown while running a credit recovery program the young man was enrolled in that allowed him to catch up so he could graduate with his class. Brown, he says, could be led astray by kids who were bad influences but by spring, he became focused on getting his degree.

Brown loved music even as a young child. Ophelia Troupe, his art teacher for five years in elementary school, remembers a reserved, polite little boy — he’d always respond ’yes ma’am’ or no ma’am.’ He kept to himself but lit up when she’d play the hip music her son made as a reward if the students behaved.

“Michael was the one to say, “Be quiet so Ms. Troupe can play the beats,’” she recalls.

Troupe hadn’t seen Brown for several years until they crossed paths at his high school graduation. After the ceremony, they hugged and he told her he’d like to be a rapper and asked if her son would work with him.

Slightly more than a week later, Brown was shot while walking down the street with a friend. Police have said a scuffle broke out with Officer Darren Wilson after he asked the two young men to move. Some witnesses have reported seeing Brown’s arms in the air — an act of surrender. An autopsy concluded he’d been shot at least six times.

Ferguson police identified Wilson at the same time they released a video of an alleged theft showing Brown, accompanied by his friend, snatch some cigars in a convenience store just minutes before he was killed. In the video, Brown is shown grabbing a clerk by the shirt and forcefully pushing him into a display rack.

Brown’s family angrily denounced that video as character assassination.

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